Tell NUHW: "Get Out of Our Hospital!"
To protect their patients, their union, and their future, healthcare workers in the Bay Area and Los Angeles held spirited rallies today to demand that representatives of a splinter group interfering with patient care and their livelihoods leave their hospitals.
The healthcare workers leading the protests--members of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW)--recently negotiated contracts with major hospital employers that provide good raises, improved benefits and ensure they will retain a strong voice in patient care issues. Today those union members rallied at hospitals owned by Daughters of Charity and Sutter Health to demonstrate support for their union, SEIU-UHW, which has been under attack by a small splinter group, the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).
"I'm a healthcare worker and providing quality care to patients is my priority," said said Denny Henriques, a respiratory therapist at Sutter Delta Medical Center. "As part of the union we've always had, SEIU-UHW, we just negotiated a strong, new contract at my hospital that allows us to continue earning a decent living providing good care. This other organization, NUHW, is still trying to derail the progress we have made by telling stories and using people as pawns to forward their own cause. Maybe NUHW should look in the mirror at who is really trying to destroy our union."
NUHW was started by former SEIU-UHW officials who were removed from union office a year ago for misusing millions in members' dues money and denying members their democratic rights. Shortly after removal from their former union, the new group filed petitions seeking to "decertify" SEIU-UHW by holding elections to move the workers to their own group. In an odd twist, NUHW is using legal maneuvers to prevent the National Labor Relations Board from scheduling the elections. SEIU-UHW members want the elections to proceed as soon as possible so that they can get on with their lives at their hospitals.
Since being ousted from SEIU-UHW, representatives from NUHW have systematically tried to destroy SEIU-UHW by attempting to divide workers, interfere in contract negotiations, and create problems in hospitals and nursing homes across California.
"NUHW has no interest in or ability to help healthcare workers advocate for patients or our professions. We're ready to vote NUHW out," said Henry Robles, a physical therapy aide who works at and rallied in front of O'Connor Hospital in San Jose.
Despite NUHW's attempts to distract SEIU-UHW members, healthcare workers have successfully negotiated new contracts covering more than 68 hospitals in the past year, with wage increases for the first year of the contract nearly double that of the national average.
Workers who rallied together today at eight hospitals in two of California's largest healthcare systems:
Sutter Health hospitals (Sutter Delta Medical Center in Antioch, Sutter Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, and Sutter Solano Medical Center in Vallejo), where SEIU-UHW members settled a new three-year contract in December 2009 that provides raises of at least 9.27% and maintains fully employer-paid family healthcare insurance; and
Daughters of Charity hospitals (O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, Seton Medical Center in Daly City, Seton Coastside in Moss Beach, and St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood), where SEIU-UHW members reached a new three-year contract in October 2009 that includes up to 18% raises and maintains fully employer-paid healthcare for all current part-time and full-time employees.
Contact: Adriana Surfas, 510-869-2246
SEIU United Healthcare Workers-West (SEIU-UHW) is the largest hospital and healthcare union in the western United States with more than 150,000 members. We unite every type of healthcare worker with a mission to achieve high-quality healthcare for all. SEIU-UHW is part of the 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the nation's fastest-growing union. Learn more at www.seiu-uhw.org.
Source: SEIU-UHW